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“What’s On Tonight?” Just Got Easier

By Eric A. Taub March 5, 2009 4:07 pmMarch 5, 2009 4:07 pm

Later this year, ZillionTV will introduce its new TV service, offering what the company says will be thousands of television shows and movies that can be streamed via the Internet and viewed on demand, directly on a TV.

If you don’t want to see ads, you’ll pay a fee to watch the programming. If you accept commercials, you’ll be able to see the programming at no charge. And the ads that do appear will be tailored to the subscriber’s tastes. For more information on the business aspect of the service, read my colleague Saul Hansell’s take on it in Bits.

The company’s success will hinge on the programming it offers and the ease with which it can be viewed. While no one yet knows how compelling that programming will be, one thing we do know is that finding the shows will be simple.

ZillionTV will use remote control technology and a graphical user interface developed by Hillcrest Labs, that significantly redefines the way people find and select programs.

(For New York trivia fans: Hillcrest Labs takes its name from the Hillcrest section of Queens.)

Gone is the standard program grid found on cable and satellite systems. Replacing it will be a series of thumbnails representing various categories, genres and titles. Selecting the type of show will zoom in to the next level of thumbnails that could, for example, represent a genre; selecting that will take one to a series of program producers, and then to a grouping of episodes, each with its own cover art and descriptive text.

It’s analogous to the concept behind Google Maps: you start at the country level, then zoom into the region, the state, the town and the individual street.

The zooming is done with a motion-sensitive remote, much like the remote used by Wii (in fact, it’s so similar that Hillcrest Labs has sued Nintendo, the maker of Wii, alleging patent infringement).

You hold the remote up in the air, then move it through space; as you do so, an arrow on the screen moves in unison.

I first saw the Hillcrest technology several years ago at the Consumer Electronics Show and was impressed with how easy it was both to manipulate the remote through space, and then to find the program I wanted to watch (You can watch a video demonstrating the Hillcrest System here.) The interface is reminiscent of Apple’s Front Row software, which allows users to easily select movies, photos and music from a rotating circle of icons.)

Hillcrest has licensed its technology to a handful of companies, including Kodak, whose Kodak Theatre HD Player, a $300 set-top box, allows users to get access to photographs and videos, and send pictures to others.

While it’s impossible at this point to know if ZillionTV will succeed, the technology needed to find the shows should be a hit. It’s an intuitive concept made to appeal to people familiar and comfortable with a computer mouse, icons and menus. Today, that’s just about everyone.

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